Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat is reportedly fighting for his life at a French military hospital after reportedly losing consciousness.

Doctors at Percy Military Training Hospital outside Paris dismissed a series of reports that he had died, but refused to provide more details. Last Friday, Arafat was airlifted to the facility located outside the French capital after more than two years of confinement to his compound in the West Bank.

In the wake of Arafat's transfer to the hospital, anxious Palestinian officials have transferred some of their 75-year-old leader's powers to Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia.

A French television station quoted an anonymous French medical official as saying Arafat was in an "irreversible coma" and "intubated" — a process that usually involves threading a tube down the windpipe to the lungs. The tube is often connected to a life support machine to help the patient breathe.

Israel TV's Channel Two reported that Arafat was brain dead and remained on life support.